Whether you’re looking for a professional career in acting or simply want to acquire better communication skills, this is the class for you. The Meisner Technique is a two-year professional training for both serious actors and those who want to discover their instincts and to become better listeners. At the Westlake Acting Studio, Markus Flanagan (who studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse) teaches the Technique using the system that Mr. Meisner developed for the Neighborhood Playhouse. Accordingly the

The next beginner class (On-Camera) begins March 19th and continues for 6 classes (over 7 weeks due to Easter break) Thursdays-from 6-8 pm. Reserve your seat now by clicking the Commercial Beginner button to the right. Beginner Commercial and Beginner Scenes acting classes will prepare you for commercials and the the jobs that the working actor first lands when he or she first starts out in the business, like under five’s and small guest spots. There are two classes from

At Westlake Acting Studio you don’t have to be gifted to learn how to express yourself. You only need a willingness to laugh at your own life’s adventures. Westlake Acting Studio offers two classes that put public performance front-and-center: Stand-up comedy and improvisation training. Over eight weeks you will gain the techniques to help you develop your own brand of personal expression. Each week is designed with exercises that first dig out your life’s humor and then shape it into

Westlake Acting Studio started in 2008 with the idea of bringing professional acting training to Ventura County. Why Ventura County? Because acting students were traveling to Los Angeles for the very same instruction that we could provide right here in a non-intimidating setting. And we could offer new actors the Meisner technique to improve listening and to help you focus on your scene partner. We’re one of the few schools outside of the city to offer the program, which was developed by Sanford Meisner at New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse. We know it will be helpful to both future professionals and non-actors who simply want to feel more confident in social interactions.

Our mission: To provide varied classes and teachers in an effort to create a place for people to further their creative interests.

Our goal is to help you become a better performer. Westlake Acting Studio may have began with acting classes, but we soon added on-camera commercials training and improv & stand-up comedy classes in order to build well-rounded performers. Then we created an acting Master class to hone our graduates’ skills (and to keep them in practice). ‘Rogues of LA,’ the studio webseries, just wrapped shooting and is now in post production. Acting studios have long created traditional stage companies. And some even support a theatre. We are taking that concept into the twenty-first century and onto the web. Not only will a web series give our students an opportunity to be seen; you will feel the camaraderie of working within a company while gaining crucial on-camera experience. Not only is it fun to act on ‘film,’ but it can be an entry point for SAG membership too. And our studio continues to grow through our very popular “Conversations with…” speaker series. Now in it’s third year, our past guests have included Melissa Gilbert, Alan Ruck, and Stacy Keach.

Westlake Acting Studio Offers Something for Everyone

Improvisation class sharpens your instincts and builds your self-trust. Stand-up comedy polishes your presentation and increases your ability to tolerate risk in a performance setting. Each provide a different set of challenges! Our personal expression & performance classes can help you overcome barriers by building the confidence that you need to succeed.

One Less Bitter Actor

Seth Godin has a mantra of “do the hard work.” I think this over writes the oft used; “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” I just shot the second installment of a web series I created to have a place to “do the hard work.” Actors are always looking for a place to put their work, a place to deliver on all the training that really sits idle unless you are on stage or on a set somewhere. Our frustration about not being a star is because being a star means you get to go to work more than others. We don’t get to “ship.” This is a term Seth uses that is used to delineate those who think and those who do. For example there are many writers who write great books, but never get to the part where they “ship” the book to the publisher. They rewrite and rewrite, but never put the product out, or worse, wait for someone else to put out a like product to feel safe enough to ship theirs.

So I built us a place to ship. And it came down to forcing myself to set a ship date and keep asking until I had the minimum of what I needed, and then physically doing everything else that didn’t show up so I could get us started. I knew starting the series was everything. When people see a product, they will choose to join, or donate, but when it’s just a pitch…they tend to wait to see who else might get in. So the first episodes are coming out as we filmed the second set of episodes. I can tell you, I’ve never been more exhausted, and I mean the true sense of exhausted as I was from that first shoot last summer. But! We got 3 episodes out of it and the momentum needed to start a crowdfund and get a few more volunteers and the shoot last week was completely different. The community is being built. Students were part of a show, a place to create, what they didn’t know about the process they learned by being part of it, not watching it from afar. Having a hired crew for the technical things made for quicker set ups and therefore more elegant shots. The production value of the show grew by leaps and the sense of “shipping” was everywhere. This is what actors and creatives long for…we were doing it. There were smiles all day and “thanks for the opportunity” to come be free labor on a set for a web series that will only have the audience we can build. When you give Actors/Directors/DP’s a place to deliver their pent up understanding of what makes the world worth having…you make a place where no one is working, everyone is shipping what they love.

Last week we lost Mike Nichols and deservedly the discussion about him has been loud. I watched Whoopi Goldberg attempt to make the announcement of his death the morning he died but her intense love for Mike overwhelmed her and she was unable to speak. He turned her talent into a Broadway show, that I went to, and the night ... Read more...

You can’t think that everyone is going to like your work. I just started my new class and in the first day talk, I ask them who they like as actors and they can always find someone and tell me why they like them. Then I point out that there are also many famous, iconic, talented actors that they don’t ... Read more...

I’ve been at this 30 years and the fun of staying at any endeavor becomes the folks that come your way with every move throughout your many station stops. I have met the biggest stars and celebrities the biz has to offer. Carrie Fisher told me years ago; “money doesn’t change people, it just lets them be who they really ... Read more...

I read a book that came to me in the most reliable way…it was left in my space so long that I took it as a sign to read it. It was a book written for the business world. Marketing. But…it came to me so I knew I had to read it, right? We love when information finds us in ... Read more...

As part of surviving the single worst year of my entire life, I decided that getting on stage this Summer, might help remind me of what it is I do, and why I do it. Sure this sounds dramatic but when you have had your whole life’s trajectory altered, you lose your compass and the feeling of simply floating though ... Read more...